The Mom Stop: Taking a brief break from parenting

Tuesday

Jul 19, 2016 at 11:21 AMJul 19, 2016 at 11:21 AM

Lydia Seabol AvantMore Content Now

It had been years since my husband and I had gone one a vacation without kids — we’d never been gone more than a long weekend. The last true kid-free vacation we took together was our honeymoon. But with our 10th wedding anniversary this year, we thought we’d take a week away from work and parenthood, a week to ourselves.

I started planning six months in advance. Because we went to the Caribbean for our honeymoon, we decided to go somewhere different, somewhere neither of us had been before.

I’m not an outdoor person and my husband would say I’m high-maintenance. I don’t like to camp unless there is an electrical outlet and restrooms very nearby. I like to hike as long as it’s not completely uphill and I’m terrified of snakes, bears and any wildlife bigger than a squirrel.But my husband loves the mountains. And so, this month we spent a week in the Canadian Rockies.

We didn’t camp — we stayed in nice hotels instead — but we hiked, boated, walked on a glacier and drank water straight from a stream. We saw a grizzly and a black bear, elk, ram and mountain goats. We had tea at a 100-year-old tea house tucked into the mountains of Lake Louise. We swam in natural hot springs and enjoyed some of the most gorgeous scenery we’ve ever seen.

It was refreshing, as the parents of three very young kids, to take a break.

We knew we would miss our kids, but I relished the thought of seven days of uninterrupted sleep, the idea of flying without car seats, a pack-n-play, a stroller and all our children in tow.

The idea of eating as two adults alone in nice restaurants without having to scarf down our food in record time due to our fussing children seemed like a vacation in itself.

What I didn’t expect was that as a parent, you never really escape parenthood.

The first night in a hotel, I heard a loud noise from outside and sprang up from a deep sleep because I was convinced that our 1-year-old daughter had fallen out of our crib. It took me about 30 seconds to realize where I was and that my daughter was not in the next room.

Although I looked forward to sleeping in, I woke up at 6:30 most mornings, my body apparently on autopilot, not realizing that I didn’t have to go to work or get the kids ready.

We called and did Facetime with our kids each day, who were spending time with their Grandma. Whenever we talked with other travelers or even the hotel check in clerk, we couldn’t help but mention the fact that we have three kids at home or even share a few snapshots of them on our phone. Even though we weren’t with our kids, they were certainly on our minds.

Toward the end of our trip, we yearned to be with them.

It took 20 hours to get home, due to flight delays and a missed flight and more hours on layover in Houston’s George Bush Intercontintental Airport than I’d like to recount. But as we flew over Tuscaloosa, Alabama, on our way to the Birmingham, Alabama, we could clearly see the lights of Bryant-Denny Stadium. I ached, knowing that our three babies were asleep, tucked into their beds only down the street, and yet we flew above them, trying to get home.

It was 1:30 a.m. by the time we were finally back in our own bed. The next morning, at 6:30 a.m., we awoke with our 7-year-old and 4-year-old jumping on top of us excitedly. I squinted at the time on my phone and groaned. Back to reality, back to parenthood — it was exactly what I had missed.

— Lydia Seabol Avant writes The Mom Stop for The Tuscaloosa News, in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Reach her at lydia.seabolavant@tuscaloosanews.com.